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There is a promised land for Just to name a few examples, Twitter hasgovernment organizations - one been effectively used for crisis commu-where citizens pay attention to public nication, public health coordination andagencies’ information and pass it along public safety improvement.to others, spreading the word for all tohear. Although there are many paths to Government organizations venturingthe promised land, your journey is likely out on Twitter face a steep learninggoing to pass through Twitter. Learning curve. The roads can be treacheroushow to use Twitter effectively and know- and you can easily get lost along theing the ins and outs will certainly help way and end up in the “land of nobodyyou safely arrive in the promise land. listens”, or worse, the land of “nobody cares”. While starting up your TwitterThere is enormous value for govern- account or adopting some new prac-ment organizations to use Twitter. There tices, patience is important. Althoughare areas where Twitter can get critical Twitter can immediately connect you toinformation out to the people who need your constituents, it takes some time toit faster than any other means available. build up an audience and learn to use the tool.NOT TO WORRY! The 15 commandments in this guide will help you avoid the most common pitfalls and help steer you in the right direction.This guide evolved from a post by Alain Lemay on GovLoop titled “Who Not to Fol-low On Twitter: A Guide for Public Sector Employees.” Alain is a Senior Web Commu-nications Analyst for the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Agency in Canada.He graciously donated his time to assist in producing this guide in tandem with theGovLoop team.Also sponsoring this guide is Forum OneCommunications, a digital communicationsfirm committed to providing advancedtechnology solutions to public-policy sec-tors, with expertise in: Digital Communications. Over 1,500 strategy and web development projects for more than 500 organizations. Drupal. With more than 70 large-scale Drupal builds, they are widely recognized as a leader in the Drupal community. User Experience and Design. Audience-centric analysis, content strategy, informa- tion architecture, design and usability testing. Open Source for Government. Successful projects for EPA, CDC, FDA, USAID, U.S. Army, and the departments of Energy, Commerce, Treasury, and Health and Hu- man Services.You can learn more about Forum One’s services by visiting www.forumone.com/government.4 THOU SHALT TWEET!

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1 THOU SHALT LISTEN BEFORE YOU LEAP We cannot emphasize enough the fact that tweet! tweet! any government organization should learn tweet! to monitor social media before they even attempt to create a Twitter (or any other type of) account.If you went to a social function and saw a Also worth mentioning are Social Mentiongroup of people in the midst of a discussion, and Google Alerts.would you just barge in and start talkingabout your work and your interest? No, you But for a simpler approach, you can startwould walk over to the group, listen in a bit with Twitter Advanced Search, Monitor andto see what they are talking about, and then Twitterfall to name a few other tools youwhen there was an opening to add value to can use to monitor Twitter.the conversation, you would chime in. Thesame principle should be applied to socialmedia, especially on Twitter. The importantlesson for government agencies while us-ing social media is to go where your citi-zens are. Listen in on their concerns, needs GovLoop Tip: Use the Search Functionand interests. And then contribute where itadds value. Comment in the Twitterati Group from GovLoop member Sam Allgood:There are many tools you can use to moni-tor your Twitter accounts and listen to your “Search for terms in your area of interest to find people to fol-citizens. If your agency wants to broadenand monitor multiple social media channels low who are tweeting about the area. Once following, read their(and you have the money), you can go for tweets for hints on how to tweet.one of the big guys (Radian6, Scout Labs,Alterian). Check out different tools like TweetDeck and twitterfall.com to find a tool that is comfortable for you.”On the cheaper side, Hootsuite, TweetDeckand Seesmic all offer free or very affordablesocial media management/monitoring so-lutions. You can do a lot of cool things withthese tools. One cool feature is that you canlink your Facebook account with your Twit-ter account, this will save you a lot of timeposting content in multiple locations. 15 COMMANDMENTS FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ON TWITTER 5

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2 THOU SHALT USE THY PROFILE INFO PROPERLY Your profile should entice people to want to follow and engage with you. That means putting up a picture (a logo or other identifier) and filling in your profile information.Your Picture: Your organization’s Twitterpicture should be the senior representative Your User Name: Usernames must be no more than 15 characters in length so takedoing the tweeting (an ambassador, for ex- this into consideration when choosing yourample) or your agency logo. This should be name. You may have to use an acronym. Ifup on the first day and changed when it is you can, try using something that is univer-appropriate. sal instead of terms generally only used inYour Profile: Your profile is where you tell your organization. For example, use industrypeople who you are and what you will be terms, or international ISO country codes.tweeting about. You are limited to 160 char- Also, avoid selecting a username that isacters, so make every character count. specific to the senior executive running the agency, as we know these people changeYou should include: often. A link back to your agency website A description of the account’s “raison d’etre:” This is the official feed of the department of ...You could also include things like: What you intend to tweet about (We tweet about international trade, travel alerts, etc) Something personal, if appropriate (John Dough, senior trade officer, tweet- ing for the Department of Commerce) GovLoop Tip: Who’s in your network already? Take a look at other agencies and departments, maybe someone has already set up an account. Get in touch with these people, sit down with them and talk through the challenges you’re having and see where you can collaborate.6 THOU SHALT TWEET!

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3 THOU SHALT HAVE A DISCLAIMERDo you only plan to tweetfrom Monday to Friday, 9:00 disclaimer: eet, tweet Tweet, tweet twto 5:00 or only check for men- eet tweet tweet. Tweet tw tweet tweet.tions once a day at 3:00 pm?Fine, but you need to spell this out. You need a good dis-claimer!As a government organization, you are exactly how you intend to use the channelsubject to certain limitations. You can’t so that followers will know what to expectalways be on 24/7 and your social media - and then stick to it. If you make changesteam may well consist of a group of one to the disclaimer, tweet about it.plus occasional help from a temp or sum-mer student. So you may not be able to Put the disclaimer up on your main web-answer every inquiry up to the minute and site and link to it from your Twitter bio.you may have to do things that go a bitagainst the spirit of social media.People are usually forgiving of this ap-proach if you are upfront about it. Explain GovLoop Tip: Managing Accidental Tweets So what happens if you accidently send out a tweet? This can easily happen if you forget to log out of your offical account and think you are tweeting from your professional. If you make this mistake, the first thing you need to do is admit fault, be honest and transparent, and then issue an apology to your followers. A comment by GovLoop member Charles A. Ray, in the post “Secret Service Starts Twitter Account”, stumbles says: “Stuff happens. One of the things agencies have to realize when they launch social media initiatives, is that mistakes will be made, but they’re usually not fatal. It helps if staff are part of the launch and are thoroughly briefed on what is and is not ap- propriate.” 15 COMMANDMENTS FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ON TWITTER 7

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4 THOU SHALT NOT BULLY (NO ONE LIKES A BULLY!)As a government agency, you certainly want to give someauthority to your account and discourage spoofers who may want to intentional- ly mislead the public. And certainly you will want to report to Twitter any ac- counts that appear to be intentionally spoofing your account and/or tweeting misleading information.But! This does not give you a license to go on a witch hunt on Twitter. This includes re-porting or threatening anyone with legal action over coincidental and unintentional simi-larities with your name, trademark, or other. Nothing will get you on the wrong end of aTwitter storm faster and your organization’s reputation can be permanently damaged.The fact is that some people might have created a Twitter account in order to push outyour information out of sheer concern for their fellow citizens. They probably did so be-cause you weren’t doing it and they willingly filled the void. The best thing for your or-ganization is to try to get these people on board. Let them know you created an officialaccount. Encourage them to re-tweet your tweets. In short, this is a golden opportunity tocreate brand advocates.Get your account verified if you can. If not, make sure you have your Twitter account prop-erly branded and have links to and from your official government website.8 THOU SHALT TWEET!

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5 THOU SHALT TWEET REGULARLYWhen deciding to follow your or-ganization’s account or not, oneof the first thing twittizens willdo is look at your last tweet.If it is 2 months old, forgetabout it!Set a tweet schedule and try to stickwith it - even if it’s just for a quick RTor a reply to an interesting post. It willgive twittizens the feeling that your ac-count is lively and that you are takingcare of it.10 THOU SHALT TWEET!

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6 THOU SHALT INTEGRATE THY TWEETAPPROVAL PROCESS tweet! tweet! tweet!No one wants to go back ten times to get what is essen-tially the same content approved over and over again. Thetrick is to build in an approval process into your organiza-tion’s regular content approval process.You will likely have some negotiating to do, so here’s what can help: Propose a blanket approval for certain types of content. This can be news releases, ministerial announcements, etc - stuff that already gets approved more quickly! For other types of content your organization produces that could be re-purposed as content for tweets, determine the level of approval. For example: Ministerial photo galleries need approval from the minister’s office. Program announcements need director general approval or above Updated need director approval, etc, etc Identify posting authority for different individuals. For example: Your senior analyst can post tweets on this subject without approval Interns/summer students can only tweet media releases John Dough is authorized to tweet at his discretion on select topics during a crisis situation etc, etcNot only will this simplify the process down the line, it will considerably speed up your re-sponse time when you need it - a crucial part of using Twitter effectively. 15 COMMANDMENTS FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ON TWITTER 11

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7 THOU SHALT NOT REGISTERALTERNATE ACCOUNTSIt is standard procedure forgovernment organizationsto register alternate sitenames to prevent squattersor spoofers. Unfortunately, this is forbidden under TwitterRules and Twitter is pretty specific about it:“Any accounts engaging in the activities specified below are subject to permanent suspen-sion.” Serial Accounts: You may not create serial accounts ... with overlapping use cases. Username Squatting: As far as Twitter is concerned, this includes “creating accounts for the purpose of preventing others from using those account names.” Inactive Accounts: accounts that are inactive for more than 6 months may be removed without noticeSo what can you do to avoid copycats, spoofers and spammers? Report any account thatseems to be spoofing yours for malicious purposes but please be careful how you goabout it (see commandment 5 on bullying) 15 COMMANDMENTS FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ON TWITTER 13

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8 THOU SHALT NOT AUTOMATE THY TWEETS I know it can be tempting! TWEET! Automation reduces the workload, but there are two ma jor drawbacks: 1 - It is not social 2- It can get you in trouble!Not-so-social! tweets were being spread through out theirNothing says “I don’t really give a darn network of tweeters. Needless to say, theyabout this engagement nonsense” better don’t do that anymore!than automated tweets, replete with cut offtext and links because the person input- One thing that is accepted and in fact, goodting the titles to your news releases or page practice is to schedule tweets ( it helps iftitles knows nothing about Twitter. If you are you are using a Twitter client). If it is verygoing to tweet, take the two extra minutes important information, you could Tweet itto craft a tweet that at least shows a genu- when it comes out and schedule a similarine interest in sharing valuable information. tweet for peak viewing times ( usually, early morning, early afternoon, and after dinner time)Double trouble! If your target audience is in a different timeForgetting for a moment that this is against zone, you should take that into account.Twitter rules, you may remember recentlythat some politicians (who shall remain What if your audience is international? Youanonymous) recently got a nasty surprise could plan 3 tweets at 12 hour intervals. Justwhen false tweets began showing up on make sure there is different content thattheir accounts. You see, these politicians appears between those tweets so it doesn’twere tweeting the RSS feeds of a higher up look like you are just tweeting the samewhose site had been hacked. So the false thing over and over. GovLoop Tip: Use the Right Language events. Wow! “ -- who’s *I* and why is he so easily impressed? Make sure you are using language online that your audience is And, oh, heavens, the bureaucratic passive: “Public Encouraged to receptive too. This will take some time to feel out. You don’t have Attend The Next Budget Forum.” (their quirky title caps.) a lot of space in a tweet, so think critically about each character. GovLoop Member David Ferguson shares his experiences: So, have a clear voice and don’t try too many tricks. It is very chal- Things I don’t care for (recognizing this is only my opinion): ex- lenging to describe a link in less than 140 characters, but this is an cess of exclamation points. ALL CAPS stuff. Gratuitous personal- essential skill an agency needs to master. ization, as in “I just checked out the Libraries list of upcoming14 THOU SHALT TWEET!

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9 THOU SHALT TWEET IN FIRST PERSON OK. This may sound like strange advice EET for an organization that frequently issues TW highly impersonal press releases: “Minister Soandso to visit site of the new WidgetrUs factory.” But experience has shown time and again that an individual on Twitter will beat out an anonymous orga- nization hands down on followers, retweets, etc. So find a way to add humanity to your streams if you can.There are two ways you can do this.1- Find one or more spokesperson(s) to tweet on behalf of the organizations. Even if mostof the tweets are clearly organizational, a few more personal tweets here and there will goa long way. (This is the official Twitter account of the Department of Deep Pockets. DeputyMinister Lint and his staff will be tweeting with you)2- Mention first names of some of the people who will be doing the actual tweeting for theorganization in the profile (This is the official Twitter account of the Department of Friend-liness. Marc, Lindsey and Todd will be tweeting with you.)3- Brand an account to a senior executive. For example, An embassy Twitter account couldhave a picture and bio of the ambassador and tweet in the first person about the mission’sactivities: I am attending a meeting of the business association of Prague My staff and I are attending a benefit concert with local artists performing live. 15 COMMANDMENTS FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ON TWITTER 15

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10 THOU SHALT NOT BAIT AND SWITCH It can be tempting to spice-up our tweets to get more clicks, RTs, etc. This is espe- cially true in the public sector where con- tent can sometimes be...shall we say...dry. DON’T! Don’t say that your senior leader is announcing important changes in the trade industry if he or she is only really commenting on mi- nor changes. Don’t say that your mayor is on a “historic” tour of Williamsburg if 3 mayors have done it before him or her.And don’t ever provide a description for a link that directs tweeps to a different page.Nothing will frustrate Twitter users faster than clicking on a shortened URL only to find outthat the subject is different that what you described.It is ok to improve a title to give it some hook, but only to a point.Do try to find something that is “newsworthy” in your post if you can.Is it a first visit? Is it important? To whom is it directed to?Try to find what is interesting about this post and highlight it.Do this consistently and you will earn a good reputation, and a good following.16 THOU SHALT TWEET!

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11 THOU SHALT NOT SPAM et! TWEET! tweet!Government organizations don’t twe twespam, do they? Maybe not inten- TWEET! et!tionally, but Twitter has a long tw eet!list of behaviors that it qualifiesas spam that you might not havethought of.Here are a few of those: Posting misleading links; Posting duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one- account; Posting multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #; Sending large numbers of duplicate @replies or mentions; Sending large numbers of unsolicited @replies or mentions in an attempt to spam a service or link; Adding a large number of unrelated users to lists in an attempt to spam a service or link; Repeatedly posting other users’ Tweets as your own; Creating or purchasing accounts in order to gain followers; Using or promoting third-party sites that claim to get you more followersSo keep these in mind and remember - the only good Spam comes in a can! 15 COMMANDMENTS FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ON TWITTER 17

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12 THOU SHALT BE SELECTIVE OF WHOYOU FOLLOW Following an individual or an organiza- tion on Twitter could be considered an endorsement of that individual or or- ganization. So you will need to be se- lective and strategic about it. So, what types of accounts should you follow? Programsinitiatives from within your organition who have a Twitter presence Fellow government departments who share part of your mandate Foreign government organizations who are in the same “business” as yours International organizations who bring something to bear on your industry Universities of other higher learning institution who have programs related to your do- main of expertise.You could also follow other types of stakeholder accounts but always keep the notion ofperceived bias in mind: Industry associations (bar associations, or other professional associations) Thought leaders in your industry18 THOU SHALT TWEET!

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13 THOU SHALT MONITOR THY ACCOUNT Creating a Twitter account is one thing but keeping it alive TWE is another. If you create a Twit- TWE ET ET TWE ter account for your orga- ET nization, you had better do some thinking beforehand. Who will monitor the account for mentions or direct messages (i.e. praise, criticisms, RTs, @ mentions, etc.)? Some of the tools mentioned in commandment 1 will come in very hand here to monitor your own ac- counts. What will you do with those mentions? When do you reply? What should go to your media staff? Do you have a list of key contacts in the organization that you can forward questions to? How will you handle criticism? These are all things you have to think of ahead about time and include in your planning. I would suggest a quick risk analysis while you are at it. What happens if your ac- count gets hacked? What if someone sends out a tweet by mistake? The better prepared you are, the lower your level of risk to your organization. P.S. When someone RT’s your tweet, it is customary to thank them! @johndeus Thank you for the RT. Much appreciated.20 THOU SHALT TWEET!

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14 THOU SHALT CONTRIBUTE TO THECONVERSATION Yes, you can use Twitter purely tweet! as a push medium and, indeed, tweet! some of the bigshots do. But you tweet! can move your agenda forward by retweeting those accounts that have the same goals as your organization.Start by making a list of your stakeholders and follow their accounts. These could include: Other government departments which share your mission Foreign departments that have the same mandate as your agency Universities Trade unionsA side note here, following an account can be seen as an endorsement of that organiza-tion/business/individual, so be selective. Only follow official accounts of reputable organi-zations. Avoid (unless it makes sense) following individuals, businesses, or politicians.When they put out important content, don’t be afraid to retweet (RT) the post. In turn,they will likely retweet your information when it is appropriate. After all, that is the wholepoint of using Twitter - circulating important information. 15 COMMANDMENTS FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ON TWITTER 21

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15 THOU SHALT MEASURE FOR SUCCESS As a government organization, you always have a duty to spend taxpayer money responsibly. In order to do this, you have to show that the resources you ex- pended for “this Twitter thing” were justified.The way you do this is by keeping track of If you notice individuals who have taken toyour successes. retweeting your content, it may be useful to develop a relationship with them. Then,Growth of your followers when you have really important contentChart the increase over time of your fol- you are going to send out, you can letlowers. Try to see if there are spikes relat- them know in advance. It will ensure theyed to topics, seasons, timing, etc. retweet it and give them a scoop of sorts. Win-win!Number of clicks on your linksMost url shortening technologies include Reacha way to track the clickthroughs to your Some tools such as Tweetreach will givecontent. You can also check your web logs you an evaluation of how many peopleto see where the traffic came from. your tweet has reached.Number of retweets SentimentHow many people have retweeted your The jury is still out on automated measure-tweets? ment of sentiment but if you have a man- ageable number of RTs and @mentions you can eyeball it. Just count how manyNumber of @mentions were positive, negative, or neutral.How many questions or comments haveyou received through Twitter? If you can’t or don’t feel the need to eye- ball for sentiment on a regular basis, youQuality of retweets and can perhaps do it only when you issue@mentions very important content to gauge the re-Who is retweeting your content? You may sponse.find that the same individuals are retweet-ing your content on a regular basis. Arethese people influential (reporters, celebri-ties, subject authorities, etc. Do they havelarge number of followers?)?22 THOU SHALT TWEET!

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There you have it -15 simple commandments that will put your organization on the road to the promised land.Twitter is a great tool to improve your outreach efforts and connect with citizens. Just re-member to be patient while using Twitter, if you follow this guide, you will see increases inyour followers and RTs, and grow your community. We have faith that, in no time at all, youwill have mastered Twitter and other agencies will look to you for guidance and best prac-tices on how to use Twitter.More Resources A Twitterfall in Congress Can Twitter Reimagine Democracy? Federal Government New Media Contacts Getting Started on Twitter (and Bonus Glossary of Terms) Government-Related Twitter Hashtag Directory Mashable Twitter Guide Book Mom, This is How Twitter Works The Importance of the Twitter ReTweet Twitter Cliff Notes Twitterati Group on GovLoop Unlucky 13? Twitter “Worst Practices” For Rookies (And Others) to Avoid And follow us! @Govloop! 15 COMMANDMENTS FOR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ON TWITTER 23